Invent Business Opportunities No One Else Can Imagine phần 2 ppt

Job #1:Inventing the Future 2 “To really help the organization meet today’s business requirements and prepare for tomorrow’s, vision must be pragmatically and unabashedly bifocal: it mus

Inventing the Future

Job #1:

Inventing the Future

2

“To really help the organization meet today’s business requirements and prepare for tomorrow’s, vision must be pragmatically and unabashedly bifocal: it must simulta-neously paint a picture of the opportunities today and the ‘best bets’ of tomorrow, and,

when push comes to shove, it must prioritize the latter.”

—Oren Harari, Leapfrogging the Competition

Conventional thinking suggests that the upper limits of achievement

are determined by how effectively we build on the past But this is

a notion that supports the Fatal Assumption

Almost everything in our

conditioning argues that living

powerfully is founded on past

experi-ence, education, upbringing, developed

skills, successes, and failures Businesses

build on established assets such as past

strategies, brand equity, resources, market

share, talent, company culture, even the quality of teamwork

I am proposing that the unique capacity for trendsetting innovation works in the opposite way

What if our lives in the present were not merely some variation of building on the past?

What if we were not limited to simply doing more of the same, better

or harder?

Is it possible to envision a future that is not limited by our history, one

in which our actions bring about changes that could not be predicted?

?????

How do you manage for the short-term, while also inno-vating for the future?

Isn’t the power to invent the future essential for creating business opportunities no one else can imagine?

Big Idea #1 represents a shift in priorities on a scale that is rarely wit-nessed in most companies The shift rejects the Fatal Assumption in favor

of imagining a desired future and mobilizing efforts to make it a reality

Big Idea # 1: Today’s strategic priorities must focus on

innovating for the future rather than improving on the past.

This chapter will enable you to capitalize on the power that comes in mastering this concept We’ll start by clarifying common misconceptions about what inventing the future entails Later, we will examine three meth-ods used by trendsetters to deliver today’s results, while simultaneously reinventing their businesses for the future

The future is a cat burglar

“We think of the future as a soon-to-be-occupied home that will come

to us unburdened by inheritance taxes, mortgage or the like,” wrote

futur-ist Ryan Mathews in Progressive Grocer “The truth is that the future slips

into our lives like a cat burglar—unknown, hiding in the shadows of the extended present, lying undetected until its presence fi nally comes to defi ne the very parameters of our existence.”

Like cat burglars, emerging market trends and competitive strategies make inroads today, while laying the groundwork for an even larger impact tomorrow Rather than suddenly appearing as our reality at some distant time, the future is subtly taking hold now The business owner who sleeps peacefully through the night is likely to wake up and fi nd the jewels miss-ing Another business has stolen his prized customers Unfortunately, the business owner’s tranquil slumber came from erroneous faith in the Fatal Assumption Relying on outdated winning formulas amounts to leaving the windows open so the cat burglar can clean out the house

But what if a company was alert to encroaching cat burglars and could capitalize on emerging changes? That company would be orchestrating its

priorities by focusing greater attention on inventing the future rather than protecting the status quo

What is vs what will be

Every company faces an inevitable tension between what it is and what

it intends to become Suppose you are an automaker and you truly believe that, by 2010, the biggest growth in the auto industry will come from elec-tronic cars Do you siphon off a larger share of money and talent and devote it to developing new transportation systems right now? What will you do to generate the fi nancial windfall from today’s automobiles or other revenue streams to fund the needed research and development for elec-tronic cars?

Without question, the envisioned future shakes up short-term plans But the opposite is also true Today’s choices and actions alter the course

of the future Imagine you are the CEO of a large retail chain that says,

“Our foremost goal is to maximize operational effi ciencies in order to stay cost competitive.” Will your strategy of making major acquisitions to gen-erate cost-cutting economies of scale produce a competitive advantage fi ve years down the road? What if senior management’s attention becomes so absorbed in milking cost savings out of today’s acquisitions that they lose touch with shoppers’ changing needs? Five years ahead, you may reach the point where there is no more fat to cut in expenses, and you are stocking products that are unappealing to your customers

We no longer can afford the luxury of focusing all of our attention

on the present or on the future The future and the present are integrally linked to one another Attempting to simplify matters by focusing on one

or the other is ineffective

Balancing short and long-term priorities sets up continual competi-tion for resources, time, and focus of attencompeti-tion But when push comes to shove, what is the right priority? Trendsetters have no doubt—favor the long term Why such fi rm conviction? Because favoring the long term is the only choice when your goal is to invent business opportunities no one else can imagine

In chaotic times, every change presents an opportunity to exploit Voting irregularities in a Presidential election create demand for innova-tive products from manufacturers in the voting machine industry, or more likely, an outside industry trendsetter If, in seven years, Chinese became the dominant language for the Worldwide Web, what chaos would that produce and what opportunities would emerge out of it? The premise is simple—unpredictability is a threat to replicators but an enormous oppor-tunity for trendsetters

This is the essence of Big Idea #1: Trendsetters simultaneously look at today’s best opportunities and tomorrow’s best bets and, when there’s no clear winner, they favor the latter This shift of priorities is the core of what

it means to invent the future

What inventing the future is NOT

Developing the capacity to invent the future requires a deeper under-standing of the notion of “inventing.” Let’s fi rst look at the four principle misconceptions replicators have about inventing the future

It is not replication

Replicators try to perpetuate favorable market conditions for as long as possible Overhauling a winning formula is out of the question Tweaking

it is an acceptable rate of change

The apparent blindness to the danger of over-relying on a winning for-mula is captured in the words of Deng Xiaping: “When you are riding a dead horse, for heaven’s sake—Dismount!”

Why do so many of us persist in trying to resuscitate a dying horse when

we could hop on a fresh mount? Because we fail to notice the warning signs

of decline that lie camoufl aged among standard measures of business per-formance Studying present-day fi nancials alone will not help you separate yesterday’s peak performers—companies whose best days are in the past— from those trendsetting companies poised for an explosive growth

If the numbers don’t provide an answer, how do we predict when rep-licating the formula for past success will no longer work? After studying

numerous companies over the past 15 years, I have uncovered 10 telltale signs:

1 The competition has copied the company’s cash cow

products, and customers can’t differentiate between them

2 Achieving results comparable to those produced earlier, even

just a few months earlier, requires signifi cantly greater effort.

3 Management is obsessed with getting employees to

implement the current strategy more effectively

4 Employees argue more about who deserves credit for

specifi c accomplishments than what’s best for the company

as a whole

5 Strategizing for the future happens sporadically because

everyone is dealing with unexpected opportunities or putting out fi res

6 Senior managers are under the gun to drive today’s results

through the roof, so developing the next cadre of leaders

takes a backseat

7 Top talent is jumping ship to more innovative competitors

8 Employees are putting in longer hours and fi nding it more

diffi cult to satisfactorily balance work and home life

9 Profi t margins are declining because customers are fi nding

comparable products and services at a better price

10 The cost of acquiring new customers and increasing market

share is rising

As these 10 indicators become more evident in your business, your winning formula will become less effective To attain or regain competi-tive advantage, you must analyze the effeccompeti-tiveness of even the most sacred

of your winning formulas Replicating the past is like trying to ride a dead horse It won’t take you anywhere

It is not improving reaction time

Another common misconception is to regard inventing the future as a task reserved for those rare visionaries who have uncanny ways of intuiting

the next trend Replicators assume that those who lack such visionary fore-sight should simply wait for the future to take shape, then react faster than anyone else

There is one problem with this approach to handling the future: It is grounded in self-deception We don’t have the luxury of waiting for the future to unfold before staking out a strategic direction, because today’s choices shape the future we will be reacting to Today’s choices about where to invest time and resources create the organizational foundation (talents, skills, competencies, assets, strategic alliances) for encountering future circumstances

While our choices can only be exercised in the present, their impact simultaneously shapes the future When choices take on a pattern, the impact is more pronounced and visible Boiled down to a simple notion:

When you choose a habit, you also choose the future that comes with it

When we consistently max out our credit cards or invest astutely, we are determining the fi nancial resources that will impact choices decades later in retirement

When we choose lifestyle habits—remaining sedentary or engaging in regular exercise—we are determining our physical vitality today as well as

in the future, and may even be infl uencing when we will die

When we choose certain time management practices—being con-sumed with the rat race or spending a generous amount of our time fully present with loved ones—we are determining the quality of love and respect among our family members for years to come

Similarly, when senior management routinely uses the previous year’s winning formula as the basis for the current year’s strategy, that decision will intensify the competitive battles of the future

But when leaders rethink business plans to anticipate customers’ latent needs, they are on the path to produce a strategic advantage that will defy competitors’ attempts to copy them

Businesses can no longer afford to wait for the future to emerge and then hope to replicate it faster and better Every day they put off inno-vatively preparing for the future brings them another day closer to imple-menting antiquated plans

It is not prediction

Predicting where an industry is headed is a preoccupying question at gatherings of supply channel members Trade associations pay enormous sums to industry analysts and futurists to fi gure out how their industry will look in the future—5, 10, even 25 years from now

But replicators place erroneous faith in forecasting As futurist Richard

Slaughter explains in his book The Foresight Principle, forecasts are based on

if-then reasoning They require careful analysis of past knowledge They then assume that initial conditions will hold and current trends continue

in order to predict a particular outcome with a certain level of confi dence For this reason, forecasts can be used as adjuncts to decision making, but should not be held as authoritative insights into the future Slaughter con-tends that predicting any “single” future is actually impossible, because it fails to account for the active role of humans as agents of change

Inventing the future requires an adjustment in how we process market-place information The core issue involves knowing when to forecast and when to favor foresight Forecasting plays a more signifi cant role in short-term planning, where there is a greater need and likelihood for accuracy

in predication Accurate predictions are essential for short-term resource allocation

As the planning time frame lengthens and the focus is placed on inno-vation, crystal balls need to be put aside A different kind of thinking— strategic foresight—is called for

Strategic foresight involves imagining a desired future that you can make happen given changes that have already or might eventually occur Trendsetters are proactive change agents who have a stake in bringing about a future that establishes them in a superior strategic position Accord-ingly, strategic foresight requires more speculative, imaginative, and oppor-tunistic thinking

In the competitive game of strategic foresight, there is no single dom-inant future for any industry There can be dozens of possible futures, limited only by what industry members can imagine In developing bold strategy, imagination is more valuable than prediction

It is not abandoning the past

The replicator’s greatest fear of innovation is rooted in a misconcep-tion—that inventing the future requires jettisoning the past There are some well-known examples that will help us put this worry to rest

IBM isn’t abandoning mainframes, even while its foreseeable future is

in e-business

Schwab didn’t get rid of brokers, even though around half of its busi-ness is e-trading

Disney retained its fl agship theme park business, even when it expanded into broader entertainment venues like sports media (ESPN), athletic teams (California Angels, Anaheim Ducks), video entertainment, and manage-ment developmanage-ment (Disney Institute)

International Management Group continued to represent athletes while

it expanded to sponsoring and managing sporting events

Rather than abandoning the past, the central challenge of inventing the future is in leveraging the past The most profi table innovations capitalize

on relationships, core competencies, assets, customer knowledge, brand equity, infrastructure, strategic alliances, and best practices The trick is to simultaneously abandon and exploit the past

Prepare for the cat burglar

Now that the most common misconceptions about inventing the future have been corrected, the next step is to put Big Idea #1 into action Trendsetters use three primary methods to insure their combination of long-range strategic priorities and short-term plans will refl ect the proper amount of innovation: dual-focus leadership, strategic foresight, and imagi-native future planning

Dual focus leadership

In times of discontinuous change, one of the toughest leadership issues

is determining where an organization’s attention, energy, and resources are